I know a bit about politics. A touch here of international issues. I am no expert and no expert would want my opinion, I think, or, frankly, I hope not. I know the little that I do because, mostly, of my Tibetan background. It has, in some way, forced me to become aware of UN doings, precedence in international policy, and, frankly, has given me a great appreciation for Ireland (who was one of the only folks to back the Rights of Tibet at the outset of the invasion...they know what it feels like). My Tibetan background also has given me an insight into the mixing of religious and secular motives in governing. It might be shocking to hear, or maybe not so if you know the Tibetan experiment, that I do not think, inherently, that they cannot mix or even be driven by an obvious religious thrust. We often make that mistake that things, conceptual things, are either good or bad. I am not saying that policies cannot be good or bad (genocide being one that I think is easily marked as bad) but too often we couch the argument in this light when it is not the case. I would even venture to say that the vast majority of our issues and policies are neither good nor bad but just 'are'. (As a side note it would behoove us to use the language of effective and not effective in order to right our inherently fallible processes-with this mind set we would have less of an attachment to our ideas and be able to see them as they are "good efforts that didn't work". In my work I try to get our program on the same philosophical foundation, belief structure, and then give leeway/support for qualified/creative folks to apply this philosophy in the arena we have chosen. Thus the issue is no longer whether it is right or wrong but if it works or doesn't. If we are always right (philosophically aligned) then we can be Right but it still does not work. This, I have found is more effective in getting to the most effective.) When we have taken this idea of 'right' and 'wrong' in the arena of policy too far we have a fundamentalist position in an arena that cannot be processed that way. If we put this process in, let us say, a democracy we have a very dangerous ground. We have a 'majority' sort of governance (so they say) with some checks and balances (quickly being eroded by the executive branches incursions) that then sees the opposition as antipodal entities that are inherently wrong and not philosophical brethren that just happen to be conceptually wrong. When we see our opposition to our conceptual ideas we have a problem. For then we must be inherently oppositional to the 'enemy'. They become the enemy in the sense that wars have been fought, that genocides have been enacted, etc. When this arises in a democracy then the very root of that democracy is threatened because of the very nature of democracy. Democracy is a plurality. Our democracy, supposedly, has a philosophical root in the constitution which had its roots in many areas but most notably in the Enlightenment era thought most especially, or to me anyways, in the Natural Philosophy/Laws of inherent 'Rights'. This was to be the basis of the democracy, the inherent nature of Beings, then the construction of the systems above this foundation were to be argued, debated, but without doubt that these arguments were done by 'like' beings. When we thrust the idea of inherent difference of this sort of Right and Wrong we attack this foundation and basis and therefore seek the obvious conclusion to such a philosophy-war. What happens when this philosophy of war moves into our pantheons of power? 

David Petraeus is in the news now and I think that the attention that many of us are giving it is too small. This man is one of the most powerful in the world and that he cheated on his wife is not the issue. Not specifically. Or, at least, not in this entry. What the issue is, to me, is the danger of having a man that adheres to this philosophy of war and is in such a prominent position. This position makes it easier to not only propagate a particular ideal of war but to winnow out, in his case, those that do not adhere to it thus making the 'sell' a smaller issue when one is always preaching to the choir. 

 "Under the rubric of free speech and the twisted idea of separation of church and state," reads a promotion for a book called Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel, by Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William McCoy, "there has evolved more and more an anti-Christian bias in this country." In Under Orders, McCoy seeks to counter that alleged bias by making the case for the necessity of religion - preferably Christian - for a properly functioning military unit. Lack of belief or the wrong beliefs, he writes, will "bring havoc to what needs cohesion and team confidence." 

McCoy's manifesto comes with an impressive endorsement: "_Under Orders _should be in every rucksack for those moments when Soldiers need spiritual energy," reads a blurb from General David Petraeus, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq until last September, after which he moved to the top spot at U.S. Central Command, in which position he now runs U.S. operations from Egypt to Pakistan. When the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) demanded an investigation of Petraeus's endorsement - an apparent violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, not to mention the Bill of Rights - Petraeus claimed that his recommendation was supposed to be private, a communication from one Christian officer to another.

Mr. Petraeus is of the ilk of the Ted Haggard's who either by the power of the political position or their proximity to that position (Ted Haggard according to an article Inside Americas Most Powerful Megachurch had, at the time, President George W. Bush's personal phone number on his quick dial) are able to influence very powerful machinations. That they believe that there is an 'anti christian' bias in the country, to their eyes, is true. In fact, if we looked at it from their perspective it isn't not true. The fundamentalist Christian/Religious view is a dying breed among the nation, at least among the populace. The largest growing sector of a quasi-religious demographic is 'spiritual but not religious' or even, if we are to include those who do not identify in any religious/spiritual practice, the '-Non's' as they are sometimes called, is growing massively as well. What happens then when, at least a large majority, if not a majority of those in power do not have this ideal. That they, in fact, have a bunker mentality that identifies their philosophical rooted brethren as only those that believe inherently in a particular religion/interpretation of that religion (I am not sure how they view Catholics for example) as those that can be 'right' and those others are 'enemies'-and if these Men and Women are those in power, or at least in very powerful positions within the overall power, then are those that are in philosophical opposition to them not enemies of the State? What happens when the people of the State they are purportedly to uphold are in a majority opposed to their inherent beliefs?

This is what truly frightens me of our trajectory of our nation. That those in power are no longer in 'touch' with those who are to be the breeding ground for that power (the whole 'of the people' bit). I do not mean this, here, as a political, conceptual way, but in a rooted philosophical way. That our 'touch' is no longer even possible if we are to view it as a methodology to influence policy via our Will. For, we will be seen as the inherently enemy. This enemy can only be engaged by war. If those that are in power are of this group then they have access to assets of war that we cannot even fathom. This is another reason I fear our insistence on such military might, that such arsenals are not benign in their stockpiling. An absent gun has only the imagination to play out in, a present gun only has a Will to keep it from being reality in which it plays out. If the Will sees enemies, the gun must come out to play. That Ted Haggart and Mr. Petraeus have fallen is not an indication of their political weakness, in fact, if you heard the language coming from some sectors it is, to them, an indication that the 'enemy' is against them. That the enemy is laying in wait to jump out at them and bring them down. The witches and homosexuals (Mr. Haggart has said this...poor man), the unwashed masses of intellectual elites (I was called an elite while I took pay cuts and couldn't afford to keep the heat on in my apartment) are arming themselves to destroy the 'real' Americans. What I see as their weakness is something that is inherent in the human psyche, that which we do not acknowledge as our humanity we cannot control. Our sexuality and our sexual urges are not banished because we believe that we are Buddhist or Christian and they do not immediately fall within some set bounds because we adhere to such faiths. If the Dalai Lama has said that, as a younger man, his vows of celibacy were hard to contain then I think that it is safe to say that even the most religious (and most effective religious) of people are subject to these pressures. And, when we do try to use such an arrogant methodologies (curing homosexuality) the subsequent arising of this sexuality is usually in a deleterious manner; cheating on our wives, our vows to God and everyone, etc. I do believe that we can guide these natural desires and that because they are natural, unlike many, does not also make them right or wrong. To be celibate is not wrong, to adhere to one sexual partner is not either, but I do not think that a biologist would say either is natural-the energy that our beings crave must be served and acknowledge. With such acknowledgment we can find a way to guide our desires.  This is also true with our desires for a particular manifestation of our desires in a political manner. We naturally want our own interpretation to be the way that it is but, we should, know that the Truth is beyond the conceptual and therefore our conceptual is an interpretation and not The Truth. With this understanding we can then guide our desires to have it 'our' way and integrate it with the plurality of those with the same philosophical roots (Natural, Inalienable rights, for example). Then our ideas can be infused, in the best sense, with the ardor of other thought, or, also in the best, we can have many check points on dangerous ideas, we can correct ourselves, so to day. Once we become a non-plural thought nation we lose our ability to correct, there is no firewall to the dangers of incorrect thought, in the least, or Inquisition like errors in the worst (thought that one side has the Truth and therefore is mandated to either destroy the other side or to torture it into believing the correct version). 

We are approaching this point of conflagration, I think. That the groups I am speaking of are being 'pushed' as they see it, into a corner of either going into the sweet 'goodnight' or to rage, rage against the dying of the light. From the language, the posturing, the writing I have heard from this group-not just politically powerful people but those of the populace that identify as a dying breed-fundamental religious, predominately white, predominately from a unicultural view of 'correct'-I hear the drums of war being beat. I hope I am wrong. I hope the red I see over the hills is only the light of enlightened thought, that, at the very least, they can see that death, destruction, hate, can only breed that, again, again, and again. That when we partake of such an evil elixir we have already sown our own destruction. I hope this but I don't believe it. 

Be well

G

In our culture there is a war for Right. I had thought, before, that this was synonymous with Goodness but was always confused because it seemed, to me anyways, that the Right was not something that was being argued. Let us take, for example, the two forms of idealized political discourse in our country-a sort of Federalism although it isn't necessary State's rights anymore but rather an anti-regulation/government bent, then there is  the group that is the Anti-Government movement-the Tea Party, if you will. The question here is not about goodness. When interviewed, I have gleaned, that these two different groups identify with the same beliefs in goodness. They are rather staid and ubiquitous, really, these ideas of goodness; Family, Friends, Charity, Duty to more than self, etc There is no argument in the larger scope of identification-oh, one may put in Gay Marriage rights under one of these umbrella terms and they may disagree with that, but the overall idea that Fairness is a goal really isn't. The argument would be, and is, I guess, in the application of the term 'fair' to that of marriage. But that is a side note and a different discussion. The problem with, and I think everyone can agree with this, is that the action of politics is inherently going to be intertwined with failure. It is always a prospect of application of best thought out plans (we hope). These plans then go out into the world and the process of Effects go into play. We have little power, frankly, how these inventions ultimately turn out. The only area in which we have power is in the intention/philosophy of the catalyst to catapult these ideas into action. However, in our modern age, despite the overall similarities of the general idea/basis for goodness we still are at loggerheads with each other. To the level of Hate we are. And Hate must have some catalyst-if it is not Goodness then what is it?

In Biology there is a basic understanding that Life will desire to Live. The entire process of Biology, in fact, could be argued to be that as a long (evolutionary speaking not in a particular individual Mayflies existence) protracted battle with Death (that Death eventually, always, wins colors this existence with a tragic aura). There is almost no quarter or end to which Biology will strive against this inevitability, from the gobbling up of a another species to act as a energy source for the cell (mitochondria) to heroic acts of immeasurable effort to survive in the individual (any refugee tale). This drive to live is amazing and is a hallmark of species in general and even more so, because of our Minds, in Humans. We couple our drive to survive with the brain capacity which, I am told, is limitless. It is no just a knee jerk instinctual drive it is, perhaps, catalyzed by this but this again goes into the field of the possibilities that are Higher Intelligence engenders. What this has lead to is, ironically, the mutual destruction argument for nuclear armament, the AK-47, NATO, and untold millions dead in the red waters of War. It is here that our arguments are driven from in our modern political discourse. This is not to say that it is unique in the history of the world, it is not, but let us look to the times when we have had other such times of Survival mentality and I am sure one would not be please with the subsequent effects of such a catalyst (what comes to mind is France in the time of the Dreyfus affair. This is when the clerical/religious survival competed against the scientific/engineering survival both in the light of French militarism). 

Therefore, often, if not all the time, and more so from the right, that our political discourse is not from this general platform of goodness. It is not. In fact, it is here that we have all the testimonies of individuals meeting individuals from disparate political backgrounds still being able to have good/great relations with each other. It is not this that is the issue. When these people come together it is because they have, to some degree, accepted that the other just doesn't believe they way they do on how to politically catalyze the common view of goodness. I would argue, though, if you were to gather a group (and I think this group is the largest) of individuals whose political manifestation is driven by this survival mentality then I don't believe that the relationship could survive let alone begin. Survival, in this light, needs there to be a winner (existent) and a loser (dead). The opposition to you, if they have this sort of mind set, does not want you to just not get your political way but for you to die. I don't know if I mean this exclusively in the figurative sense either. I have met far too many individuals that had such venom and anger in their eyes and bodies to think that they meant only that my initiative would not pass. It was the eyes of a zealot and Inquisitor.

I have touched on this a bit in the other paragraph but I want to flesh this idea out as well, and this is the strange thing that occurs when we allow this drive its head. We arrive at a mutual destructive state. That if you proceed with this action then I will proceed with an action that will, in the end, destroy both of us. Why this doesn't stand up to reason is many, I prefer a discussion that was told to me by a professor that seemed to be so puzzled by this decision. It was in regards to America disarming their nuclear arsenal or, at least, reducing it by nearly 100%. The arguments that he got were that anyone could then bully the US into actions. He didn't seem to understand this. He was a good professor and one that I believed stood his ground on moral issues, at least those I could see. What he said was he couldn't understand this line of reasoning.

"If, let us say, the Soviets try to bully us and say we want all of the apples in Washington. If you don't give us all the Apples in Washington we will nuke your state, states, etc. Then, an America that has stood down from this ability to do this because of disarmament, could say still, 'no'. And if they Soviets insisted with their line of belligerence then the US could say from a moral high ground, 'no, and I do not wish you to destroy us but I will not be bullied' and if they did nuke Washington? Then what apples would they get? If they nuked Oregon as a warning we could still say, 'no' until they were forced to nuke Washington and still no apples."

You see, this form of refusal takes enormous amounts of courage, despite it being seen as weak. The taken blow with open heart takes much more strength. The argument I have gotten back is that they still could invade-one, that is unlikely, but if they did then they would be engaging in a conventional war and not one that would crack open the earth and make it uninhabitable for any real Life to exist. My professor called this a form of moral pragmatism that wasn't pacifism. Another story of this which is shorter this one from a German scientist who said, in regards to nuclear war,

"If a burglar breaks into your home with your family and loved one's in it, it is okay to shoot that burglar. If the burglar breaks into your home, under the same circumstances, it is not okay to blow up the whole house with everyone and everything in it." The idea of mutual destruction usually leads to, I believe, the mutual destruction. We came close in the Cuban missile crisis, which Kennedy's get lots of credit for-for bringing us to the brink of a nuclear holocaust because the USSR had the temerity to do exactly what we did/do in eastern Europe. I wonder if we will be able to get by our ability for actual mutual destruction...I hope. I think the Human Mind is something too precious to waste on our lizard brain instincts. 

This is what we have today as a political 'discourse'-something that has gotten so far away from our ideas of goodness and society and one into which survival instincts is the power that we are touching upon. It is a powerful but base aspect of our natures, one we share with our single celled brethren, but it is not something that is Human and of our higher functions. I have been told, and taught, that this has many reasons but one may be the culture in which we live in. A glib, screen culture, that whose very medium-the screen-cannot exude, manifest, the required pathway to our higher order functions. It is the harbinger of the trite, the clever, and quick. And thus, we have, our elected officials who say, 'if I cannot have my way then there will be no way. I will destroy the political process for both you and me."

Tocqueville in his opus Democracy in America was not so impressed with the idea of Democracy because, despite what people said then (in America) it was not a new invention. What he said was the genius of the American brand was its ability to transform itself, correct mistakes, which were inevitably going to be the case. He said that this was the reason it was better than the monarchies which, could, he thought produce enlightened activity and fantastic governance, however, it being based upon such a small set of rule it could not protect itself from mistakes. One aspect he did not touch upon though, or one I cannot recall at this moment, is that there be a level of basic belief that the political process had to have good will of the other. The other had to be Human and not a demonized individual whose error was political and not foundational. This is not to say that there is not hyperbole of supposed demonization and certain ideas can be demonized without making this mistake. History shows that this occurs.  But once we make the error of believing the individual was/is mistaken at their very core of being (individuals in a particular political/Racial, Ethnic, etc. bend) because of some conceptual reality (big nose, democrat, republican,) we have, at its worst, the basis for holocausts and, at the least, a gridlocked ineffective political system. When the only way to be able to govern is to have such a majority that the opposition has no say, then this is not democracy, my friends, this is a weird monarchy/oligarchy. One born of fanatical devotion to a political mode of thought and of which, if we were to use a traditional monarchy, could not produce an effective noble. Fanatical nobles usually wash the world in blood and pain. 

I think all this while I fill on the blanks on a ballot. I fill in, as always in regards to political entities not the initiatives, with an eye toward the better of two shit sticks. This machine is broken. It is like an alien pod that takes in a good person and makes of them a disgusting simulacrum. Ahh, it is the age we live in. And in each age there is such decanters of folly to wash down the crumbs of insight. I just wish there was not such destructive force behind this age's folly. When before a musket and blood was the reach of stupidity-it is now drones and nukes. The wine of folly is the same but the drunk now has access to extend oblivion. 

Be well
G

I awoke and smiled. I smiled because the warmth of my dream had not seeped away in a nod toward entropy and the imposed outlines of my dream were still recognizable from the uniformity that surrounds. There was a woman in my dreams. She looked like my wife. She was my wife. Not my wife in the sense that she was an actual apparition of her or a replicate of her, but my wife in a dream sense: she was the manifestation of the mythical of which she represents. Such Mythology needs ghost and goblins, angels and demons, leviathans and imps. In this case she was a woman of Kundera and spoke to me in words that tumbled out of her mouth, words that I could see, a vowel, a consonant, mixing together into a molecule of a word here and there, sometimes bouncing off of each other because they could not even connect in a hydrogen bond, sometimes they weakly held to each in some dipole connection where their understanding was just out of grasp-pseudo-words like, suttle. 

I dreamed of a woman speaking to me.

Light, there is always light in my Mythical engagement with women. I wonder where this comes from. Always light; corpuscular rays, soft dawn, dappled forest sunshine, the crisp glare of desert suns. 

"Where is this love of yours?" she asked me. In the light. She was smiling a smile that had not precursor and could not be defined except for a poetic nod to mirth and warmth. 
"You say you love me," she said and didn't stop smiling, "and yet I cannot find it like this bottle cap that you refuse to throw away, I can't hold it like this apple core you have left on the counter to brown, I can't taste it like the lobe of your ear," she says the last and bends down to nip at my ear as I have heard the Indians of the plains used to do to subdue the horses. "You speak of this love and how am I to know it?" and she lifts her head and her black hair, this hair that must have coalesced from the palette that made up the spaces between the deepest stars, reaches to me. 

I must of frowned for she laughed to let me know, again, that she was teasing me. 

"I know you love me G__, I know it. Like a Woman knows things but is afraid, at least now, to say she knows it. In this Now, where We (she always speaks of women, in this tone, with a capital W), have to hide what we are like thieves stick to shadows and duck their heads to be misidentified. The Now is not a time for a women, Women, oh, we lost long ago but we were not mortally defeated. We must live out the remnants of the loss, suffer through the lies we tell ourselves, the lies that make us into the ridiculous theater we have become-trying to be something that we are not, a Lion trying to live a life of a Shark. It looks silly and out-of-place in such an environment. And this environment is a time, a place, a culture, a society, and I reject it all. For if there is no Women, there still can be a Woman, and I am a Woman and it can be marked by my rejection of everything that is standing. All things are, we cannot argue, immeasurably connected-the sneeze of the bitterest man steeped in the bitterest tea of misogyny effects the swirl of clouds in a distant gas giant planet, so goes for the weakest, for, what the Woman knows is that there is no Weakest-that is a Man's interpretations. In the womb, in the hands of Mothers, the Mothers who have given suck and nurtured the weakest among us, who has given birth to the weakest, who knows that in that weakness there is a spark that can bring down the heavens and make god bow. The Weakest can move as much as the strongest-these silly measures of men.In this connection that a Woman knows in such a different way than a Man knows, than you know, my dear, the knowing of today is your knowing-of counting, of logic, of measuring, the knowing I know is the one of a Mother who sees that Weakness that comes from her body, from her womb and into this world, and she knows she will love it and give it all things that it will need, even to the detriment of her life. A Man may come to this conclusion but his coming to it is not a natural arising and he must use his tools of reason, logic, self-talk, to bring himself to this height. I do not.

In this way I love. In rejection of all that has arisen in this time because it is all connected to the war of Men, that it was the defeat of the Women, that echoes in this blasphemous reality we call Real. I am a Woman and in this rejection I love. I love from the deepest, darkest, mysterious waters that I know without my eyes, or ears, or tongue, or skin, or mind, or breath....It translates to you as, 'I just know' and it is inadequate but that is because of the lacking of your language. You see, I love you as a refugee, as a lone survivor of a time so long ago we have forgotten, I love you like an oasis loves that which she has saved from the desert; not only the desiccated Man that laps at the shores with his blistered tongue and sloughing lips, but the beetle that runs from the sifting sands to the firm soil that holds the palms, the minnows that scurry from shadow to shadow, the eagle that sits in the boughs and watches with a wisdom that just 'is'. That is the way I love you. 

You will wake, in hours, maybe minutes, I get confused in your agreement with the Sun, it doesn't make sense to me. What I say will fade, it will go to the place that you try to forget, the place where the Women have gone, and yet you will feel me. You may reject me, at times, the silly notion in your head that doesn't make sense to you and yet persists, the uttering of a gasp when the butterfly dances among wind that you cannot feel, the tug of your heartstrings when you fall in love again, and again, the love that rejects all that is. And it will be silly, and you will come back from it, but I will still be there. I love you. I love you, and in this there is no coming or going, no here or there, there is not even an eternal point for that would be an outside of the point-There is, but this             . And you cannot see. But I love you still. I love you, I love you, I love you. Wake with me pressed against you. "

Then I awoke and wrote this in my Man's hand. 

Be well
G

It is the season for politics, which, for me, has become a true and utter theatrical practice. Now, this is not to say that theater is not powerful, and as is with powerful things, possibly dangerous or useful in its effects. We can see any discourse on media studies that shows a effect on the individual and overall psyche of a particular society. The arguable point being to what degree it does have but that it does have an effect is an accepted idea. Thus it is important, I believe, that we understand the role of this type of theater in our society. That it has an effect on our psyche, at the least, is true (as far as this argument goes), and, to a greater or lesser extent  the particular governance in the immediate sense. Using this framework lets continue with my tale.

I have dedicated much of my life to the have-nots in this society. In particular in the education field. I am, currently, a program director for a very small program that serves the students with the highest barriers. We serve them, support them, through a slough of barriers that make me sick that such children have this lot: homelessness, sexual abuse, physical abuse, substance abuse, malnutrition, learning disabilities etc. etc. Our goal is to support them through a college education. They typically start out at a 4th grade math skill set and an 8th grade math skill set. Within 18 months 70% will be on college. I have done this in some capacity for the last decade. Before that I worked with this same population but in middle school, I started out in pre-school with children in poverty. I write this brief to show that I have, in the scope of this entry, worked primarily in the 'help' field which is usually government funded in our society. What this has brought me into contact with, usually, is the traditionally liberal mind set and culture. This is not bad, it is not 'good' either, it just 'is'. What it has opened me up to is to see that I am not a fit in this grouping, in some ways, as much as I don't fit in the more 'conservative' circles. I am a misfit. 

In the program I helped build and design we understood, from working with students, that the question we had to answer, first, was do ALL people have the ability to acquire an education. I believed that it was so. I based this on my meditations on what the Human Mind was, and how it was built, my definition for an education, and the experiences I have had in the field. Thus with this universal I then had to ask the question as to 'why' it appeared that some students couldn't or would not. I found it was a two-fold answer, a student either were a wrong fit systemically or they were abused to a point of rebellion that manifested in to rejection of all parts of the dominant/dominating system. Most student were both of these. We engaged this through intensive case management that focused on the barriers to education and a skill focused education system. That meant that it was, for all intensive purposes, not built on speed of skill acquisition e.g. grades but on the actual skill acquisition. It didn't matter if a student took 2 weeks or 2 years to learn exponents just that they did learn exponents. Each step had to be proven by test taking, this test taking was within the scope of a relational model-we knew our students, the communication lines are open in discussions of fear, hatred of standardized tests, etc. With this relational model we were able to ameliorate most of the fears in the vast majority of our students-enough so that they could test and move on to the next level of study. Interesting enough, once each 'grade' was broken down into skills, the students sped up. 

Why this is radical is that we understood that it really was a skill issue. That our students had skill deficiencies and there were reasons why they had it. The reasons were targetable and, for the vast majority, we could reduce the barriers to a point where they could acquire the skill set. We focused on the softer skills, mostly, through our relationships. The discussion about having to show up, be dedicated, and commit to fractions, lets say, before you could 'learn' it came within the auspices of our relationship with the student. It didn't have to be a 'program' or a curriculum-our students learned it on the 'go' and were supported by committed and knowledgeable staff. The teachers had to understand, believe, and want to engage at this intimate level, to be open to the students, learn from them, and want to get to know them to such a degree that they knew when the student was really struggling or was being obstinate. This is radical also, this second half, to the other side of the spectrum. To get to know a student, to put faith in the human adaptable nature, the human intrinsic nature to want to help someone they Know, is really foo foo-but it works. The student feels care for, respected, and then, he or she, shows through their side, their respect and care through their effort and drive. All can learn. The system that wants to show this must believe this and then show its belief through the structure and trust within their program. To be Skill focused one does not have to have a draconian, militaristic, system. I can be 'Liberal' and skill focused as well. 

My misfit nature has, when I was younger, lead me to feel as if I must apologize for myself. This is also in my own personal life. Because I believe in marriage equality because it doesn't make sense that the government sanctions one type of orientation and not another-but I get in trouble because my real feelings are that neither should be able to be sanctioned by the government. If we are going to have legal responsibilities and rights sanctioned to our relationship then let us call it a Civil Union for all-let individuals or religious groups identify such a union as marriage. I don't speak of this too many except my close friends who feel I am wrong. But, aside from that, when I say I do believe in Marriage and I believe that I am Married, that I do believe that there is a holy aspect to marriage (I just don't think I should look for it to be legitamized by such a flawed entity as the government) , I am frowned upon by my Liberal academic friends. Frowned at by those who are more conservative because I believe this is not gender or orientation focused. The transcendent nature of binding in this union is symbolic, Mythical, and beautiful. That I have, on the surface, a relationship that looks and, frankly is despite not identifying it as thus, conservative looking. I have a female Wife, she chose to stay at home to raise our beautiful children; she does the predominant amount of cooking and cleaning, I bring home all our money. I feel, or have felt, I have to explain myself and apologize to people in my field, culture, etc. I go to queer disco nights supporting transgender victims of violence...I used to feel odd about having my wife with me, having a wallet full of my adoring children, or even having very mundane joys-I had the best time this weekend hanging out with married folks, on a river, and watching our kids float around on inflatable rafts. I had a beer, some hummus, and a smile. There was a time I would scoff at such banality-I would shiver with fright that it would ever be my lot-but there I was. 

My belief that my life should be dedicated to the least, to the most vulnerable, has only deepened. That this is our calling. That in our current structure it is not possible to do just as a small community for relatively banal reasons-money. I work with schizophrenic students who need enormous resources to be helped. These resources are not accessible by small community groups or individuals. Historically when we didn't have government programs to help they lived terrible lives. Their lives are not as terrible, it could be argued that they are still grim, but I would argue less so. So in our modern age/manifestation I am called a liberal. I have liberal thoughts and tendencies. Although my practice to fulfill these callings are not traditionally liberal. If we lived in a 30 person tribe and only one of us was 'off' I don't know what I would be called. Perhaps just another member of the tribe. I don't think anyone, in such a small knit group, would let 1 family/person starve, get so little, or die because of a 'choice' or an innate reason. Maybe they would. Perhaps they killed the individuals with Down Syndrom or with physical disabilities-I don't know. I do know, in India, when I lived there for a bit-that a man I met said it was better to have AIDS as a poor person than it was as a rich person. Once you have gotten to that stage of inevitable death, the wealthier society abandoned you. The poor surrounded the sick person. They massaged him (there was a man that was an example at the time) and spoke with him as he rested in the sun, they took turns so that he was never alone, they cleaned him, fed him, took care of him. I'd like to think the tribe we would live in would be like this. But, unfortunately, the times we live in require us to live in a bureaucracy that can somewhat serve 300+ million people. In such a state, I believe, the State is necessary to dispense these programs. 

So here I sit, a misfit, a modern Liberal that gets everyone confused and upset at me despite helping to do some good work. A liberal that apologizes for having a strong, supportive marriage, happy and engaged children, because I do not fit that cultural idea of Liberal. Who has to argue with the conservatives despite decade + of amazing outcomes because they disagree with me at the philosophical level of state and individual calling. They do not debate my numbers-they are audited quarterly by some very strict auditors. So despite us reducing recidivism, increase graduation, help take people off of the public dole, help furnish companies with driven, skilled workers...I have to apologize because we are funded by government money. 

Strange.

I'm sorry

Be well
G

I was called a lazy child, which, to many, would seem odd if they knew me today. If I am known as anything, now, it is busy. However, despite these people's incredulity, I was considered a lazy child. I was called this because of my reluctance to perpetually be involved in washing the dishes, weeding, vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the tub, chopping wood, cooking, mowing the lawn, etc. etc. I would do these things but only after being directly asked and threatened. But, considering the nature of these things, I believe that, that was a reasonable methodology. It isn't that I was against serving my family, I just thought I could do it in other ways. 

When I think about that time in my life, though, and if I were to extrapolate my childhood to other's, the greatness moments of insight and joy happened out of this 'laziness'. When I listed the prescribed cure to my laziness or definition of it above, I was not being totally factitious, when I was daydreaming behind the lilac bush I was considered lazy. When I pretended to roll boulders through the a forest (grass) and created whole universes to fit with my imagining-that too was lazy. In my laziness I floated on clouds, I thought about death, I thought about the death of my parents, other planets, the great expanse, I thought about my sister and my future family, I warmed myself underneath sweet youthful summers, I enjoyed candy plums in the vacant lot that sprouted fruit trees and long grass. It was in this laziness that I was able to find the respite from the crushing poverty that I grew up in, the refugee, immigrant, sort of poverty that is of a special flavor. The respite from helping my parents balance their checkbooks and worrying about issues that were beyond me, or should have been. 

When I extend this idea further and think about it, what is busy'ness? How do we define it in our everyday lives. My parents defined it with household chores but how do we, in the royal we, define it? It is usually with some frenetic all encompassing focus. A War, for example, is filled with busy people having busy thoughts, in fact, a War, I do not believe, could be created by a lazy person. They would scoff at the beginning of the idea. Oh, in my thoughts of knights and sorcery there were bad guys and good guys, but that was an act of imagination-to stretch that out to a reality of conflict would be far too taxing. Let us look at most of our lives, in America, the average person is now working over 40 hrs a week, if we include child care and such, our work load is huge. It is, in fact, tops in the world for the amount of work we are producing, in fact, our productive hours/efficiency/output has steadily increased over the years (although our pay has stagnated if not dropped in Real earning rates) as has our overall hrs. Thus we have never been more busy. Multi-tasking, calling the boss while at your child's soccer game, strategizing mortgages while making love to your wife, networking while having a beer. But the question must be asked-to what purpose? Has all this activity lead to a happier, better life? I am willing to concede that we have never before been more awash in things, have never before had such progress in medicine; to the first of these I wonder how much we really need, to the second I ask if such advances would be necessary if we weren't so busy? We know so much about the linkage between chronic stress and disease (When the Body Says No-by Gabor Mate is a great look into this) I wonder if we decreased our activity if we wouldn't reduce or eliminate a great deal of the necessity of cutting edge medicine. 

This may seem like some other blurb telling us to smell the roses, to take a break, but it is not wholly what I am saying. What I am saying is that we don't take a break from such a hectic frenetic lifestyle but to eliminate the philosophical catalyst that causes it. Activity, by itself, is not good, it is not bad either, it is neutral. To what end is our motion? Laziness, or what goes for laziness, at least in my life, is good-that it more reflects our nature as humans. We move because we have to move, we stay at rest otherwise-Aristotle had it right and he was misunderstood to think he was talking about 'physics' (not really). Many of the good things, I think, can be attributed to a lazy attitude, rest, insight, imagination, engagement (my method of teaching was often shocking when seen-for, my curriculum was not drastically different than anyone else's, I spent a great amount of time building relationships e.g. talking to students. This was, I say to them after they see that my students succeed at inordinate rates-at least in the measurements that systems care about-that it is digging your well. If you care about someone you work harder to help them, this goes both ways, the student works hard, the teacher works hard and the relationship is not a sterile one where we can hide behind a number.) Laziness lets what and who we are emerge and we can adjust accordingly. When we are inundated with nervous activity we are not able to engage this person and ask that age old question, "what do you want?" Without that answer we cannot direct our energies, when they are called upon, to a destination that is ours. 

Be well

Stay lazy

G

"Let's go wide open. Let's see what we see, record what we find, and not fool ourselves with conventional scientific strictures. We could not observe a completely objective Sea of Cortez anyway, for in that lonely and uninhabited Gulf our boat and ourselves would change it the moment we entered. By going there, we would bring a new factor to the Gulf. Let us consider that factor and not be betrayed by this myth of permanent objective reality. If it exists at all, it is only available in pickled tatters or in distorted flashes. Let us go."-John Steinbeck The Log from the Sea of Cortez

To clarify the 'pickled tatters' part of the quote, as I believe I must, he was speaking of how a person trying to know a fish from an objective standpoint would have to pull it out of a jar of formaldehyde, count its dorsal fins and jot that 'fact' down. However, this would be missing the fish in its 'real' state which is as an interactive part of an entirety; its smell, its movement, its color, etc. And it is in this that I have pointed out numerous times in my blog but again, in a different way, would like to point out again: life is not fractional, ever, it is always an entire act. 

There was a time when I was more outwardly adventurous, in my youth, as is so trite to say even tho no less true. I was in South America, in some small village where there were a few other travelers. I met a few; an Israeli young man who had just finished his mandatory tour with the military, a German woman with short blonde hair and blisters on her lips, three French Canadian women who, in my memory, are always inextricably linked as an individual mass. I was speaking to Jacob, the Israeli man, and he told me that he was interested in seeing a lake that purported to be either the highest volcanic lake in the world or in South America. I cannot remember which one, but I do remember it was the 'highest' of some large area. I thought it sounded intriguing and so I decided to go with him. 

I wore a pair of nylon jogging pants, a windbreaker, a t shirt and my hiking boots. I say this because I, inexplicably, did not take into account the 12,000 or so feet that lake was at. I was, at the time of decision, at an elevation that although high did not dampen the equatorial heat below a mid 70's to 80's. This was not the case when you go above 10,000 feet or so.  We reached the lip of the caldera in the early evening and it was already getting cold. I was cold. I ate a stew of cuy, which we know as Guinea Pig. It was good but I would have eaten it even it if was not-I was cold and the stew was hot. That evening I stayed in a 'hostel' that was just an old barn with a clay fireplace. I tried to burn dung in the fireplace, a wet log, and some hay, unfortunately, I think because of the altitude and the dampness of the material, it just smoldered. 

That night, I thought I would die of hypothermia. 

I had nothing to do but steep on my thoughts among the vapors of dung. 

What was stirring through my mind was all the fragments of my life. It wasn't just incomplete visions of this or that but what usually I thought of as 'whole' stretches: my schooling, my childhood, etc. When describing my Life to someone I would put one or two of these fragments, maybe three, and say that that was the sum total of my life. But this has always been unsatisfactory to me. It is as unsatisfactory as an explanation of a fish as being only that information that can be derived from a pickling jar in a somewhat removed laboratory. However, with my mediocre (at best) stamina and resiliency I had succumbed, mostly, with exception of the feeling of dissatisfaction to this fragmented life.

Oh, there are epiphanies, here and there, of a hint of a wholeness, but I have succumbed. Life is to be known by Life-and the best way I can explain this is by reversing our cultural atomistic drive. In our life, as it is, we start with general principles, lets us say, in the scientific field, we start with, a fish, then we ask what a fish is? When we do this, in our modern sense, we usually examine its eyes, fin, its external geography identified by points. Then we cut the poor thing open and identify the internal geography. We then ask, for example, what is a fish’s liver, and follow the same progressive, downward, spiral into Chemistry, then, lets say, Physics with its description of atoms etc. But I believe this is wrong. How can the internal workings of my lymph system, in regards to my liver, be something that is so removed from my higher aspects of life? My liver has no purpose outside of the highest principles of my life, its General Principles I guess one could say.

I believe, the purpose is, to start with specifics and move to generalities. For it is the generalities that move us, or, at the very least, should.

An example being, a class I taught, to parents about how to, frankly, keep their kids out of my program (which is for students that have dropped out of high school). These parents all were pretty involved in their student’s lives, knew about their classes, how to get them to college, what were pre-requisites for specific colleges, etc. However, when I asked them what they wanted for their children they replied,

“To go to college” and I replied

For what?

“To get a job.”

Why?

“So they can feed themselves, house themselves, etc.”

Then what?

Silence.

“have a family?”

For what?

Silence.

What do you want for your children?

Silence. Thoughful silence.

“I want them to be happy.”

What does it mean to be, in your families, individuals, designation to be happy?

Silence.

Here is where we started our discussion/workshop. The general principle had not been worked out and therefore they were working as if the specific tool within the structure of their lives was the ‘meaning’ in itself. It is not and cannot be. It will fail in that purpose. We have to, and I use ‘we’ here to make the bold statement of Humanity, know why we are doing things. If we do not know they ‘why’ we default to our instinctual reasoning, our animal reasoning, which is body focused. Unfortunately, that is eternally dissatisfying for this animal, us, that has transcended this Animal nature to one where there is self-reflection. The Hunt, by itself, will never be satisfactory to our human aspect of our being-our Non-Animal aspects. Because of evolution, or god, or karma, or something-we have arisen from this state of animal innocence to a place of Self-consciousness. This Self-Conscious is always out-of-sync with the Nature aspect because of its very existence, it seeks to arrive at a state of unity but cannot with the tools of the animal-the humanistic means must be engaged and these take the understanding of the overall, general, principles of our existence. These are the guiding principles that will focus on the pathway to this Unity we seek but the one in which our Humanity can be satisfied.

Let us go-to be Happy, to know it, to be Fulfilled, to understand this, to seek that which we Are. These need specifics but the specifics have to be bounded by the Highest goal, this goal has to be connected with our specifics-in our modern age, start with the specific and it should see the connection to our General Principles. If we do not then we should reverse this action, know ourselves, our drives, and then the tools will arise consciously.

When I almost froze that night I imagined my life. It came to me in a whorl of colors. When the false dawn arose and I was still alive I made my way to the calderas edge to see the lake in the dawn's light. It was a material example of the whorl I felt in the evening; grays, and pinks, flashes of deep greens, and blues, then lighter colors, swirling in this lake. That is my life, I thought, those colors, and within that swirl were all the tools of my life, the specifics, but the actual Life-was the entire lake. And, it could be said, the caldera, the volcano, the lonely peak stabbing the sky, the sky itself was in that lake, the clouds, there can be no life without Life-there can be no life in just a specific because the specific does not exist, it is an illusion to illustrate, in the best, the principle's of this mystery where we all Are. It is in this equality we must find our duty and the tools in which to fulfill it. 

Be well

G

I am reading Erich Fromm's The Sane Society. I like Mr. Fromm. The work is an extension of his work, The Escape From Freedom, and to a lesser degree his other works. His poignant question he is asking is if our society is sane? If it is sane (or not) then what are the evidence to support this claim? He also posits, from his earlier work, that the driving of humanity in the totalitarian regimes e.g. soviet union, was a drive away from freedom. That man sought to be enslaved rather than elucidate and live his freedom. In this work, he focuses more on how democracy is an escape from freedom by alienation. 

Why I have brought up this book and some of Mr. Fromm's ideas are that I have picked him up again for a particular purpose. In the arena of my secular studies and focus I am troubled by what I see (in my non-secular studies I am as well but as these two aspects coincide, in many places, they digress in the overall explanation of what is going on. In my religious studies there is an aspect of transcending the secular, empirical methodology, via that methodology-e.g. use logic, reason, and experimentation to its furthest reach-then faith must occur. Although I must admit I am a poor practitioner, I do try with what little I have, and I have not reached the end point of logic-I have glimpsed it though. Thus there is a hopeful conclusion to this end, unfortunately, in my branch of practice this end is individual and that everyone has to get to this point themselves, therefore suffering is imminent and pervasive until then. This is where my secular studies come in and I get a deeper glimpse of this immediate predicament of suffering. I believe to help within this, one must understand the underlying Mythos that is driving it, I see no better way to find it than gleaning such secular works as those of Mr. Fromm and others. It is useful if not all too hopeful in its conclusions. For 'hope' in the best sense, I go elsewhere). What I see in this world as it is, in its current form, a crux, a fork, a choice. While there are many cruxes, and many forks, even daily or immediately, there are also one's in which the decision leads down a path of irrevocable consequences. Now I am not here to debate that there are no 'take backs' in anything, this I know from a philosophical standpoint of 'reality', however, in a practical sense there are, if not 'take backs', decisions that are not so dire that their consequences can be ameliorated or reversed even. 

The crux in which we find ourselves right now, to me, seems to be a moment in which our decision will have irreversible consequences. It will be irreversible in one direction, in the direction of destruction. What makes me think of this, and now, that makes this moment different than any other moment is that of technology. Before I go too far down this path I want to make sure that the 'moment' I talk about is at this moment 2012 but is also simultaneously talking about the advent of weapons of mass destruction. It is arguable to say, in matters of death toll, that the AK 47 is the real weapon of mass destruction and not the Atomic Bomb, but I do not mean it this way in this entry. I am talking about the means of destruction that can, in relative moments, alter the ecological, environmental landscape in totality. The AK 47 has done this, in parts, by destroying communities, and I do not mean to belittle this, however, the AK 47 cannot destroy the entire ecological environment in totality e.g. destroying the ability for all life to practically function. Saying this, I do mean to include the AK 47 in the argument of 'technology' just not the main thrust of it.  

As our technology has progressed we have come a place where it is possible to reach into the basic building blocks of nature. To harness these aspects to astronomical proportions. This ability to harness these aspects of nature like the splitting of atoms, the genetic manipulation of species/plants, etc. comes with a cost. The cost is that of power and how it is wielded. There are some, and I actually think this is the majority, that think technology by its very nature is benevolent, that it is good. With this I would argue. That technology, as it can be grossly described, is the ability to make tools to extend the reach of Man. The ability to make a tool is, however, a tool itself. Tools by themselves are neither good nor bad but are extensions of the being that is wielding it. If we examine, as Mr. Fromm has done much better and more eloquently that I ever could, the Human body as a whole, or even in large subsections-let us say the US-I believe it would be hard pressed to say that it is a benevolent enterprise. I cannot say it is wholly malignant either, but I will say that the evidence is, at least, more so on the side of harm than that of nurture. Mr. Fromm would say, I believe,  that the society at large, if not malignant, is not sane. This is more of an accurate description in the light of my argument. If the society as a whole is not sane that the power that our amazing technological march is an extension of this insanity. 

Lets us look at the other side of the argument of the saner society, which I think we can do with some clarity. I believe that most of it resides in the material aspects of description. It is inarguable to say that the western countries have accumulated a wealth never seen before. That it has spread to sectors that haven't seen it throughout the ages is also, I think, can be said without much sound argument to the opposite (that the middle class is shrinking horribly is another entry). But at the same time, let us look at the century that has just concluded. The conflicts that arose and what those conflicts showed was an aspect of our natures-that millions, globally died, they died to ideologies that both sides thought warranted massive deaths. Both sides saw the other as evil, that they were on the side of some Cosmic good, and that killing the other was the best way to go were standard arguments for these motives. It could be said that this is no different than the history of mankind, or the nature of Humankind, and to this I have argument but for this sake lets us accept it as true. The problem doesn't, in this instance, lay in the fact that conflict is in the hearts of Men. It is that in our modern age this conflict, or this drive to conflict, can no longer be localized. That technology has reached a point where it effects the world. That to succumb to this basest desire is to challenge our basic ability to exists. This is not just on an atomic scale-it is chemical warfare, it is transportation of warfare e.g. jet planes make it possible that asymmetrical assaults (terrorism) is possible e.g. there is no barrier to transmission of warfare to anywhere in the world. Higher levels of jet planes make it possible that we can bomb and extend our 'desires' into places and nations where it was all but impossible previously. And we speak of, here, only the relatively old technology of a turbine engine. That we still think that bombing someone will make them stop hating us, and that they will not seek revenge, is, frankly, either stupid thinking or non-sane thinking. That we live in an age where there is not safety in distance makes it doubly a problem. That the excuse of extending/protecting the American Way is used and seen as plausible in such areas as Afghanistan is mind boggling. That the billions, if not trillions, spent on destroying the infrastructure of Iraq and sending our own people there for a farce is not seen as criminal is insane. I call it a farce not because we went, ultimately, but because we did not require a level of evidence that killing a human being should require-which is, in the criminal courts of America 'innocent until proven guilty' and in a capital case it is, 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. That thousands of people were killed, that thousands of American soldiers were sent to die, that thousands if not tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed, without applying a basic principal of justice we use when prosecuting a single individual in America-is ludicrous. I use this judicial term here on purpose because, with all its faults, the American Judicial system is a system that was put into place for us to be able to discern Justice via the Logical, Reasonable, and Moral systemic method-an extension of the secular methodology that I spoke of in the first paragraph. I am not arguing here, that war is no necessary in some instance-I am struggling with that thought myself, to be honest, but even if I were to say that it is, to do so should require the level of evidence and requirements that we use to prosecute a capital case in our judicial systems. I do not believe anyone could say that the evidence we had, at the time, met that requirement. 

These examples are signs of a society that is not prepared to bear the tools that we are bringing to bear. I am not even pointing out the pointlessness of our wars when, in relatively short time, we are again in bed with the same groups (or reversed-they were friends, then were enemies, despite no discernible change in policy or attitude) that we went to war and spent blood in fighting-Qadafi, Hussein, the Taliban, Bin Laden, etc. etc. That their Evil was short lived, not in practice, but in how the State viewed them is absurd.

If we do not even use War as a sign of a holistic mind gone awry, let us use our means identification-in our culture it is one of consumption. That this consumptive lifestyle is the 'right' of Americans goes with little debate. That it is the Right way, and that other nations would do well to follow our lead, is debatable but without comment it is implied. That our very natural world could not support a consumptive level of even half the world at the rates in which Americans consume everything-electricity, natural resources, food, etc. is a fact. And yet, as our ability to acquire expands we continue to do so at alarming rates; the average house size in the 60's when we had a much larger avg. family size was 900 sq. ft. it is now 2300 sq. ft., that we consume exponentially more calories is true, that the numbers of cars per family has grown tremendously is true, that our consumption of fossil fuels has grown to unsupportable levels is also true. Our seas are filling with microscopic beads of plastic that we are afraid will choke our base of the food web is also true, that there are swirling garbage patches in the pacific, that dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico exist because of huge effluents of fertilizer and other nutrient rich waters from the Mississippi is also true.

An example that hit home, for me, was in a place I adore-Hawaii. I stayed with a friend of mine, Michael, who is a native Hawaiian man that has fought to re-instate the monarchy in Hawaii. He knows how difficult that would be and that he has little chance of it occurring and yet he continues. After long talks with him, in front of a river that flows into the blue waters of the ocean, he described the environmental collapse of his island. The rivers were filled with Samoan fresh water crabs previously, clams, fish, etc. And now they are fouled because of the cows feces, the crabs are almost gone, the fish miniscule. The reefs are silting over, the oceans become befouled, and why? Why do they ship in so much of their food when they have such bounty there? They were self-sufficient previously, and could be now. The ocean could feed them, their fertile lands could feed them, and this is not some hippy fantasy of no cars, electricity etc, because they have an almost inexhaustible supply of both geothermal power and solar power, let alone wave power. Why isn't this being used? Why do they continue with practices that have fouled their wonderful islands, will continue to do so, and will detract from their overall health, economy (who will go to a fouled Hawaii?), and self-sufficiency-the American ideal.

So as we careen down this path, what is the answer to this question of 'who we are'? Of course there cannot be, specifically, answers but on a holistic aspect I believe we must. It is impossible not to do this whether we want to or not because our actions themselves engender an illustration of our general beliefs. The milieu that keeps coming up is one that is fractured with insupportable claims: we are peace loving (though inundated with drives to war), we are freedom loving (but choose to be on the side of subjugation e.g. you must believe as I do), we are sane (yet, a basis of sanity, I believe, is self preservation at the least and driving toward a thriving and in both these aspects, evidence points to the contrary). How can we expect a better 'tomorrow' when our today is filled with the causes of a worse tomorrow? What happens when even the aspect of tomorrow ceases to have the barest 'hope' because the today is so bitter it cannot bring forth the almost undying hope for tomorrow. 

When the societies basis for decision making is insane and absurd, and that it will try with Herculean effort to maintain a status quo that is not succeeding in the drive toward happiness, what can be the outcome? That this absurd basis disallows for reflection because despite the evidence it still says, 'it is good', then what can be done? When evidence, logic, reason, and hysterical warning are met with a silent reply what then? it is not that we do not know what makes us happy-ask anyone, someone that you can know for a bit, and it will be Family, or friends, and a deeper questioning will reveal a sense of connection and meaning. Why is it that we drive toward the opposites of what these do? Why is it that we strive to make economic systems that will break the family, that we send our children off to physically destroy other families, why is it that we have no time anymore for a deep friendship and in its place we put faux-entertainment, and faux connections? We love our children-and yet, we burden them with a debt that they will not be able to pay, we love child and yet we will not be brave enough to change the educational environment for those that they will interact with-poverty is not isolate-the poor and disenfranchised do not stay only in their areas, we are connected. 

With the efforts we make to maintain-we could change. Yet we will not. As we dive down this tunnel to some abyss, we have picked up the ability to extend this drive-it is dangerous but this skill could lead us out of this dive as well (we are so disconnected on a humane level but we are so connected on a technological level-this could be used to even this equation out). But will we?

The silence is deafening. Our leaders do not talk of this. My friends shy from this conversation. My family laments it, but being refugees, knows it is coming. 

Be well

G

In my younger days, not my youth mind you, but younger than I am now, I had spent so much time in the contemplation of larger systems. This systems may have been something as large as international political dependency or, something as large and esoteric as economic systems. I cannot count the tears I spent in such arenas and heartfelt energy. This energy slowly waned and, although it did not sink to apathy, it sank in measure mostly due to the reflection on what outcomes my efforts could produce. I started focusing most of that energy into the local aspects of my being from community gardens, fighting the building of a jail in my neighborhood, and on education matters as related to the program I work at. I had gotten to a space where I believed that the existing structure in which I was in did not matter in its philosophical structure as long as it did not interfere, at the worst, with the day to day operations of my quest to find meaning in this life. In my life this included the above specific actions but also on religious matters, familial, etc. Whether this overall system I was in was called communist, socialist, or democratic, whether it was a capitalistic or barter, I had no opinion on in itself-only in regards to the way it supported or, more importantly, impeded my quest for meaning. 

With this being said, I must say, this foment about the health care debate has gotten me to thinking. This, I admit, in my own life has lead to some trouble before so I do not do it without some trepidation. I was thinking about health care because, as with most of us, this is an area in which I have been personally touched. My father has been very ill in the last year or so spending 6+ months in the hospital with a lung infection and then, because of a fall, rehabbing from a brain injury that caused him to have difficulty walking. From a strictly monetary standpoint he would have been, without our state enacting some of the Health Bill's laws before it passed through the supreme court, kicked off of his insurance because of exceeding his limits. In 9 months of care he had approached a million dollars. In these trying times I was faced with the reality of the situation and not an academic nor a policy decision. It was not a debate topic brought up at a cocktail party nor something to be morally upset over from a distance. It was a difficult, debilitating, and shocking realization.

What the realization was that even if you are strongly in the middle class or in the lower echelons of 'rich' (apparently this is identified by making more than 120 or so thousand a year in household income) you are in grave danger of being completely wiped out. My father worked at a hospital and had 'good' benefits. He worked in the cafeteria and so his hourly wage was not something that most of us would consider 'good' but enabled him to live, somewhat, the life he wanted. However, right when he got sick, twelve weeks later, he was unceremoniously dumped by those good benefits. He had to get COBRA care, which if you don't know, is the same insurance you had when you worked only you pay the whole premium. You get the discount that the employer got but you still have to pay. It is, at maximum, for 18 months and then you have to go on your own to get insurance. For my father it was 700 dollars extra a month-and now, with no work income coming in, it was even more of a burden. He qualified for early retirement but that was 800 dollars a month. We worked desperately to qualify him for long term disability insurance and finally he got an extra 1000. However, his medical bills from even just co-pays mounted horrendously. He owed 10s of thousands of dollars by the end of his stay in the hospital (the first time). 

That brief overview was just to set the stage for what I experienced in this situation. By my count we, my sister and I, filled out between 2 and 3 hundred pages of paper. We went back and forth from drs to get verification signatures, SSI offices, HR offices, PO BOXs, then carting my father off to appointments, and on and on, while working full time and trying to be a husband/father too. What these, admittedly wonderful programs, wonderful because they exist, are built to do is to keep barriers up to those that don't really need them. Therefore you always had to do much more in order to prove the diagnosis, situation, a sort of guilty until proven innocent mentality. The oceans of paperwork, I believe, are set up to hinder the process, to weed out, individuals. These are just the government programs. Not the for-profit programs. 

In these insurance programs the amount of paperwork, meetings (my father had a weekly meeting with insurance representatives by phone when he reached a $ amount of care-he was on 10-12 liters of o2 assist, at the time, and was so sick he could not lift himself up) was immense. Despite the individuals, many of whom were kind and helpful, the entire structure was directed toward profit. The term 'health care' was an oxymoron in this context. Health care presupposes that Health of the individual is paramount, but, how can this be in a for profit adventure (I lump hospitals that are non-profit in this arena too-for many different reasons, mainly that payment to executives can still be obscenely large in a non-profit arena)? Profit, at the least, must tie with the ideals of Health Care, and in my experience it was not a tie. At each turn of my father's care there was this unsaid, unseemly, assumption that profit was the driving motivator. My father, before he was told by his insurance company that he was healthy enough to go home, was told by his doctors that he needed additional care, 24 hr care, in fact, and yet, right after this was said, we had to find a place for him to stay in a 24 hr period (they, the hospital, said it was a minimum 72 hr notifications-when this didn't occur, they admitted, that the insurance company had final say despite their feelings. They said this constantly, almost a mantra-"...but it is up to the insurance company")

This was just the health care aspects. His long term disability insurance was regularly trying to reduce his benefits to 2-300 dollars a month. My father, with just subsistence amount of money needed more than that, his rent was 500$, his insurance was 700$, and his co-pays/medication, was 200$-that left him with 100$/month for anything else. If his money was slashed by 700$ he would have to forego his insurance. In order to maintain his disability insurance I had to, every month or two, go to all his doctors and hope they would sign paperwork that identified him as being in dire straits. They were more than willing but the numbers of patients of theirs that they needed to do paperwork was daunting, thus, often, i had to make multiple trips to make sure they met deadlines that the insurance company imposed. 

This entire experience put in perspective my previous ideas of structure. That there was somewhere in there an aspect of individual meaning that had to be addressed in our structural realities. Perhaps, not at first, but as they come to fruition and reveal their intent. In the sense of these arenas of health care, disability insurance, etc. it would seem that putting them in a context of a capitalistic agenda would be at cross-purposes for what it was intended for (I hope). I believe Adam Smith would agree after reading his preceding work to A Wealth of Nations-The Theory of Moral Sentiments. How can health be the defining goal of a capitalistic mechanism? For that matter, if we are to widen the scope, lets us take Food for an example, if we look at it morally, what is its purpose? To strengthen the individual, to sustain them, to bring them closer (festivities), would probably be a good place to start and in the milieu of American political philosophy we could, without too much wrangling, say that food is an aspect of support Life, in the Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness equation. The tension that we place on something like Food when we put it in a capitalistic arena is that one side is to to, as I said before, and the other is to reduce the cost of production and increase the cost of consumer acquisition. Or some such equation where profit is retained. What this leads to is, I believe, inarguable compromises in the production of 'food'-lower quality, massive over watering, fertilization, pesticides, etc.

Housing? To a certain degree, yes. There is, I believe, a basic right to housing. This might sound horrendous, to some, but I believe it. We don't have to think of it as old Soviet type of housing but look to a place that is often seen as a hot spot of capitalistic endeavors-Singapore. Around 80% of their housing is public housing. They all get a writ for a small apartment and if they wish to sell it, rent it, etc. it is up to them. They get one. This is in accord, with many reason, some of them less idealistic-to keep a damper on land/housing speculation because of the restriction of land, but also there is that belief that people deserve to have housing. Vancouver has a harm reduction model for their chronic drug users, that they get housing in these old high rise hotels, access to clinical care, and counseling, that there is access to resources that can 'assist' in helping them out of poverty is there, but there is an understanding that many will not access these. They will live miserable lives of suffering and addiction. That they have harm reduction housing is more of a statement of what they can stand than altruism-to me that is. I cannot stand that there are people who suffer without shelter (health care, food) for I believe it is a right even for those that don't 'deserve' it. It is a statement of my belief structure more than doing something FOR them. 

I am not saying this is an all or nothing proposition. Let us take Medicare for example-individuals, who can afford it, usually buy supplemental insurance even when on Medicare. This would not end this type of insurance. Foods that are not 'necessary' lets say, Soda, and Cupcakes, etc-or we could use the Food Stamp rules in what can and cannot be bought (no tobacco, alcohol, etc.). In these other arenas it would be a place for Capitalistic zeal-in housing it would be the second homes, or for those that don't want to live in a 800 square foot apartment, or vacation homes, or....

What I do know, now, is that structure matters, or know again. It matters, usually, not at the beginning, if we have our intentions correct, but what comes to fruition. We have to have the temerity to say that this structure does not reflect the values in which it was born and how we want to view ourselves. This is the power of mastering a system rather than being a cog of one-it is in the power of destruction. When the answer comes back, "but we have to because of this and this" we have become a cog, when it comes back to, "how must we change it to be in accord with us" we are masters. In order for Liberty to be attained one must, we must, own our systems, if not we have, at best, given up our freedom for a gilded cage and, at worst, sold ourselves to the devil and made ourselves the slave of our darkest natures. 

Be well

G

I walked around a lake near my house with an old friend. We were talking about our wives and children. I am reaching an age where, although odd, it is not unheard of to have a friend lose a partner. She was young, in her mid thirties, and she died of stomach cancer. At the funeral her husband heard story after story that he did not know. They were sweet and bitter; they were sweet because of the revelation that her kindness and gentleness were not biased to specific relationship but were wide spread and natural to her, it was bitter because of obvious reasons. My friend, of whom I have not spoken to for years, used this story to tell me that no matter how deeply I knew my wife, or thought I did, she would, to a greater or lesser degree remain a mystery to me. Her stories are out there beyond even her own control. This came about because he asked me how my relationship with my wife was and I replied that it was amazing. That she was my favorite person. He wondered what we spoke of after all these years, not just children he hoped. I lifted his spirits in telling him that it wasn't just children we spoke of, but that our children catalyzed deeper conversations on what we thought was right and wrong, of revealing misconceptions we have had, or illuminating insights that we had previously. We also are able to see our childhoods through the lens of our children now (man my kids are lucky in such a lens!). Also dreams and fantasies, of travel and projects, and things like that. 

What this got me to thinking as we passed by a family of ducks was the idea of how we recognized anything in this conceptual world. We have a sense recognition of what we are perceiving, whether this recognition is internal or external does not matter e.g. a memory or a family of ducks external to me. This sense recognition then sparks a concept within the mind which then catalyzes an emotional response (I like it, I don't like it, I am neutral etc.). How we know an object is, minus the emotional connection, is through a definition. What that duck or memory to me is an idea with evidence. This evidence is strongly linked to culture and experience-an example that comes to mind is the coke bottle in the 80's film The Gods Must Be Crazy. The main character was not wrong to see it as a rolling pin nor was the pilot who threw it out of his plane incorrect in viewing it as a bottle. However, there is a boundary to what it can be-and this is evidence, I cannot call that bottle a bird, if by bird I mean it is a living being with feathers, warm blood, and a gizzard. If by bird I mean something in the shape of a bottle, it could be filled with liquid, or be used to roll out dough then it is just semantics and not a definiendum problem. This is both empowering and limiting, limiting, at least, at the conceptual level of existence. It is empowering because this inherently gives the construction of reality to the individual in the sense that each concept must be defined/accepted. The evidence used to do so can be weak or strong, like any argument, but the individual has to accept it, whether it is passively or actively. This gives rise to the communal nature of reality where we empower our mutual agreement to what a certain thing is, this hat on my desk right now, for example, and act as if the smudginess of the concepts does not exist. What is disconcerting to some is that we are not really, at the ultimate level, able to express, exactly, what this hat is Really through this means. It is not wrong to say that, in essence, by conceptualizing we are always incorrect because of this issue of conceptual identification. The Etymologists are always hollering at us that this is the truth of language, that language, words, are not revealing what an object is but is, in fact, representing or symbolizing what it is. 

Why I thought of this is because when I think of many things, most especially my wife, I am always dissatisfied with the extent of my abilities. There is a discontent with my poetic language, with anyone's to describe her, or my feelings, or our relationship. There is only a profound silence that, if I was to be honest, that can explain what I feel. The Mahayana Madhyamika Prasangika tradition it is rooted in a brilliant and immensely profound philosopher Nagarjuna. I have read this often but recently I read an introduction of a commentary on Nagarjuna and the author stated something that seemed so appropriate and, to put mundanely, cool. The Prasangika thrust is the elucidation of the Buddha's silence (specifically on 14 questions in the Sandskrit texts and 10 in the Pali Texts). This is not just some esoteric explanation to leave one befuddled, The Buddha said that it is a net of dogma that these questions cause, and that to posit an answer will lead one further away from the Truth because positing is conceptualizing which, as we have explored above, is, at best, hinting at a truth but is because of the nature of conceptualizing, ultimately in error.

What my wife is in the Truth of the Buddha's silence.

She cannot be known in the mundane methods. She slides away from my grasp.

She is only known when concepts are set aside and the Truth arises seemless

Light, Bliss, Peace.

When I meditate in the light of the summer sunshine and feel a presence of profound nature even within the motes of dust that play in the beams. I see Her there. Until I know that, that which cannot be encapsulated by a structure and only hinted at by the grandest of our poets. I cannot know her.

I would love to know her.

Thus I meditate and seek. To find her.

Be Well.  

I see the gray creeping into wings at the side of my head. The crows feet at the corners of my eyes extending. I feel the onset of time like the onrushing of a tide in the northern seas that I live by now, first the waves lap periodically at the once dry rocks, then water seeps in between then and start to fill reminding me of women's eyelashes I have seen that became sodden with tears. I am not weak but I am weaker which is a tragedy because only now do I think I could have used the strength I had properly. The trite youth, such a banal waste, lost minutes strewn across tavern floors, shimmying up against air mint in the urinal, and maybe a useful hour or two in South Asia and on the banks of the Amazon. I sit here, late in the evening, with the best things I have ever done sleeping in their respective beds: my children and wife. I can't sleep, like so many other restless night, where I am tired, so tired, but my mind won't stop. Tonight I am thinking about what I would say to myself as I walked out of college. I remember that day, many years ago, but it a foggy memory except for a brief moment of clarity when I saw a late blooming flower on a cherry tree in the quad that lead to the stadium that I was 'walking' in.

"It is not what you think," is what I say to that boy that stood there briefly a midst all that hub bub and glanced at a bloom and a leaf. "it is never what you think. You are desperate, seeped in despair, and you think that it will go away as you pile on accolades, certificates, money, women, progress. That it will be assuaged in some grand eloquence of words. You look for beauty in the ephemeral and find it, lo it is there as a blossom, but you do not realize you are making a mistake of permanence-that you posit ephemeral means you believe in a moment. There isn't one. You are so dramatic, in the worst sense, you think of grand gestures whether artistic or otherwise-you deny it, but you believe it despite your denial.

You will find, that it is not in these grand gestures, even those that compete in the empyrean know that it is never in the grand gestures that this despair is assuaged or, for the great, solved. It is in our daily, moment to moment struggle. This struggle to life. You were an evolutionary biologist, or trained to be one, and you watched the Iguana on the Galapagos struggle for existence through genes and competition (sexual selection) but it isn't that, son. It isn't sex or genes that it fights for despite all the equations and pointy headed, dickless scientists will tell you-it is a struggle of existence on a Mythological level that they are attempting in their animal manner. They have no words, their poetry is in their genes, in their DNA, and they can only find meaning in this gross manifestation of their material existence. That ugly beast that you try to color in adjectives and wonder, the one with that gross pink tongue that gnaws at begrimed rocks burped up from the colon of the earth. We are the same, only, we have some dim inkling of consciousness that is above just this mute drive. We have something. And yet, in this consciousness is our only hope.

Most of your life will be awash, if we see it with the same eye as the evolutionary biologist in the Galapagos, in something equally base and gross. Oh some, some of these heathens in this country, who try to sell you their shit sandwich for caviar, will revel in their filth and grime and call it 'winning' but it is not. But in this patina of woe you will have a chance. While stuck in traffic behind a clanking dump truck reeking of half a ton of rotting organic spinach and organic apples and dog shit in organic biodegradable corn plastic, next to a SUV that some woman in ridiculously large sun glasses talking into a phone, beneath a horrible sky scratched with the exhaust of planes, hazy from the idling cars, you will have a chance at seeing it as a Buddhafield. To transform that woman into a goddess, to, at least, afford her the benefit of the doubt, wash her in compassion and understand she is in the traffic, probably has kids she needs to get home to, maybe talking to a friend who needs her.

What I am telling you is that whatever you try to do in this shit hole illusion is worthless in it of itself. Whatever greatness you get in this world, fame, money, anything that is of this world by itself, accolades, whatever, is a trap. It is a circular argument.  You cannot win at it. There is only one Truth and it cannot be found in the ocean of lies. I don't know it yet but I have caught the breeze that will take me to the current that will take me there. It is only in the act of sacrifice, the act of lacerating one's own soul, only in the fire of compassion, does drive and intellect have any meaning. Despite your desperate attempt to seem like you believe this and actually not believe it, it is true. Despite wishing there was another way, there is none. Love is the only answer. And, it is a pathway wrought with blood and sorrow but in that blood is tragedy and nobility. In that path there is escape. 

But again it will be in the daily grind, in the banal, for everyone has to do it, everyone. All of our lives become rote, if we let them, only our blood can make it something worthwhile. Only our blood and submission will make this daily illusion become worthwhile. Only in this understanding will our dim consciousness reveal a sharp one that shows an escape. 

Do as you must, in this world, do as you must in the light of this that I am telling you; whether you are a janitor, teacher, or president, it matters not, it is only your Will to Live and what this costs.

Grow and be well."

Be well
G